In The Moment
by redtrouble
Summary: A Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man's Switch short story featuring Jake Armitage and a street samurai named Karma. She comes to terms with Sam's death... after a fashion.


Outside, the world was waking up. Inside, the world was still asleep. And down in the Seamstresses' basement, the world was dark. As Jake Armitage and Karma ducked into the runner hideout, they noticed only a few runners lounging about, prepping for a mission or relaxing after one. Karma went straight into the empty bunkroom and he followed her, as though they still had business. Maybe they did.

"You holding it together?"

She turned away from him and said, "I'm tired." But she wasn't in the moment. She was somewhere else. She was in a memory. Not even a fresh memory, not the confrontation with Jessica at the graveyard or the long and grueling battle against Brotherhood security and fraggin' ghouls or even the numbing return to the Union just as the sun was starting to rise. She was much deeper in the past. Years deeper.

Jake grabbed her wrist and held her still, looked intently at her through those cybergoggles he wore, his lips barely parted, the threat of a smirk twitching at one corner of his mouth. They squared off for unknown reasons hurtling toward unknown results, allies one minute and strangers the next, back and forth since they'd met. It wasn't a stone's throw in the imagination that along the way they would be friends. Or enemies. It was the nature of the runner.

And then he saw whatever he needed to see because he let go, but Karma couldn't guess at what. Mentally, she was standing over Sam's grave, staring down at the coffin, and not really being there because mentally she was somewhere else, in another memory. Sam was gasping in that memory; their battle with Renraku thugs had been a close call. _That was a helluva thing. I'm out_, he'd said. _What about you?_ She had shrugged. _I do this_, was her only reply. He had nodded like he knew it already, frowned like he regretted asking, and looked away like it hurt to know. _I'll be waitin' for you_, was the last thing he'd said to her, _in hell._ Then Jake spoke and brought her partially back to reality, her last words to Sam lingering like a ghost in the back of her mind. _See you there._

"Time to duck back into the shadows," Jake said. He nodded once in the way of final farewells. Then he grinned. The grin of the past. And then all at once, all the layering created a final image. He had been Sam's friend after all. It wasn't hard to believe there was a little bit of him in there, similarities drawn upon. His attitude had been so standard that it was easy to get along, humor on-point to make him memorable, and quirks familiar enough to draw her in. After all, it was the way he handled himself that really reminded her of him, of Sam. But Jake was his own man, his own person—not unlikeable. And then he grinned, and she was both in the moment and in the past.

Karma reached out and grabbed his jacket. They both stood still. He was still grinning.

"Tell me the truth," he began lazily. "You were lovers." It wasn't a question. He had already asked the question. When they first met and he had learned about her gig to find Sam's killer, he had laughed and asked her, _Are you his ex lookin' for revenge?_ She had given him one word: no. Ex meant girlfriend. Girlfriend meant relationship. She and Sam had never, at any point, had a relationship with definitions. Except for one, and that was business.

"No."

"You're a liar, in denial, or hung up on technicalities," he said then bent to kiss her and her mouth was open and waiting, tongue thrusting to meet his. And she was only half in the moment, half somewhere else.

_There was a knock on her door and the clock on the wall read 2 AM plus. When she opened it, Sam didn't say hello, didn't smile, and didn't wait to be let in. He moved toward her and didn't stop when they connected, just wrapped his arms around her and kicked the door closed, pushing her deeper into the apartment as his lips folded over hers. She could taste alcohol on his tongue and she wondered if it was the drinks that made him come over or the coming over that made him drink._

Jake stripped her duster and shirt and pants then pulled her naked against his body, still clothed. He picked her up and wrapped her legs around his waist, thighs supported by the guns strapped on his hips. He pressed her back against the bunk and his mouth established a hard connection with hers while his hands sought some buttons to push.

_Sam peeled her clothes off and helped her remove his, driven hard by lust. But Karma thought there was a strange dichotomy in his actions; he kissed her like he would have her whether she wanted it or not but his hands touched her soft and gentle, almost like a timid lover._

Jake was hard, a rough lump under his jeans that was both enticing and aggravating as it pushed up against her until she was so turned on there was a wet mark on his crotch to remember her by. He unbuttoned his pants and then rubbed his fingers between her slick folds before unzipping. He pushed inside of her and it felt so good it hurt. Had it been that long? She sighed hotly and angled her hips toward him. He was different than Sam, bigger, had a deeper reach. That was good. She needed him to reach all the way inside of her, to pound that hidden button until she hit a hard reset.

"You're thinking of him," he whispered huskily into her ear. It wasn't a question, and it was true.

_Sam put them both on the bed and pleasured her with his hands and mouth until she was so wet that he slid inside of her with ease. He rocked in and out, slow and fast and everything in between. It was a long and hot pace that made her mind thick like Seattle fog. They tangled together, sweaty and needy. Her whole body vibrated, riding out a long wave of satisfaction._

Jake bore down on her chest until it was hard to breathe then hiked her hips and held them at a perfect angle. He rammed into her with hard, quick strokes, friction sparking fiery heat in her belly. Electronic snow crowded her mind and overtook her vision. She cried out with each thrust, and every shout was almost a request of "more", a demand, maybe even begging. He was hitting that button way deep inside of her and she could feel it coming, a thunderous wave of electricity riding her circuits, ready to zap her rig into silence. And then came the reset and she moaned gutturally, shaking with the surging currents, and felt her body release.

_Sam looked her in the eyes when they were panting in post-euphoria. He never said a word and neither did she. He kissed her. And they slept._

Jake smeared the mix of their ecstasy into her sex and grinned when her body trembled with an aftershock. He let her down, zipped up, and kissed her long and firm. She was only partially in the moment, still mostly lost in the hazy aftermath of another hookup.

"Denial," Jake decided. He brushed her cheek, smiled his goodbye, and left. And she dressed herself and went to sleep in that other place, the other bed with the warm body cradling hers, now fully committed to this other moment.

So when she emerged from the depths of the Brotherhood building, shoved Jessica into the waiting hands of law enforcement, and saw Jake Armitage standing on the other side of a police barricade, she was surprised to find herself completely in the moment. He grinned when she started walking toward him, and burst into laughter when she was close enough to hear.

"Did you get her?" he asked.

"Did you doubt I would?"

"Not even for a second." They stared at each other passively for a beat. "When Sam was deep in the drink, he used to talk about the things close to his chest. Often, this samurai he used to run the shadows with, how he loved her. The only person he could depend on." He licked his lips as he studied her; she imagined she looked how she felt: physically haggard and emotionally burned, but mentally appreciative. Then he nodded to Dresden. "I got time."

Karma had a quick chat with the coroner then phoned up Sam's attorney. The promise of payment turning out to be a sham stung less than she expected, probably because deep down she _had_ expected it, and all her anger proved to be bluster when she saw his smiling face over the vidscreen. "Thank you," he whispered. She nodded, might've even smiled back. "Goodbye, Sam."

Jake was beside her when she left the crime scene, hands shoved into his trench coat pockets. "Is it over?"

There were a lot of questions in that three word query, but the answer to all of them was the same. "It's over."

Jake nodded. "I heard Mitsuhama's looking for a team and they specifically want a woman," he mumbled. "No idea what that's about." She side-glanced his way. "And I just got word that something's going on at Crater Lake. The Tir got it on total lockdown. No-fly zone, the whole thing. There could be something in it for us, if we poke around." He looked at her. "And there's always the Ork Underground—haven't seen that yet, have you? I got plenty of friends there who are good for a job. Something's bound to come up." He smirked and stopped walking. "Whaddaya say?"

Karma snorted, shrugged, and kept going, hiding her smile by looking dead on. Without looking back, she answered him. "I'm in."

The End


End file.
